British man threatened members of a gypsy clan known locally as ‘Los Pertolos’ which, according to the court, is well known for its acts of violence.

Married couple have been sentenced to four years in prison by Almeria Provincial Court for extorting money and the ownership of a car from a British man living in Arboleas. The couple, aged 41 and 46, are members of a gypsy clan known locally as ‘Los Pertolos’ which, according to the court, is well known for its acts of violence. The couple threatened the British man, who ran an estate agent’s business in the Arboleas area, showing him a pistol which they told him had “already been used to kill a person” and telling him at the same time that they could “become enemies”. Later they went to the man’s home where other unidentified members of the clan surrounded him and forced him to sign a contract giving work to the accused.
The victim was also forced to give them a document which they then used to transfer ownership of his son’s car to the married couple. The car was later returned to the victim by the Guardia Civil.

Aloa sailing ship, which sails under a German flag, had been moored in the Almerimar Port in El Ejido and was being prepared to distribute hashish,

code-named ‘Operacion Testa’, and carried out by members of the Customs Vigilance Service (DAVA) and the Guardia Civil, led to the arrest of two people found to be carrying some 2,100 kilos of hashish on a boat 10 miles south of Almeria Port.The operation began last November, targeting pleasure boats in the area which were believed to be transporting drugs. The Aloa sailing ship, which sails under a German flag, had been moored in the Almerimar Port in El Ejido and was being prepared to distribute hashish, which had been picked up in Morocco, through local ports Officers who boarded the ship found 70 packs of hashish and arrested a 65-year-old Spanish man and his 27-year-old son who have been taken into custody and charged with crimes against Public Health.The father has a criminal record for similar offences and has served time in prison for murder. His son has a record for violent behaviour towards women.The 11 metre-long ship, which is worth some 100,000 euros has been impounded and remains in Almeria Port. A BMW and several mobile phones have also been confiscated.

Illegal Hotel in Almeria will have to be torn down.

Spanish supreme court has just ruled that hotel built on the El Algorrobico beach in the Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park in Almeria is illegal.
The hotel, promoted by a company called Azata del Sol, was the first stage in a plan to build a massive resort including the obligatory golf course plus residential development. In a natural park and on a protected beach it should never have gotten off the ground, but slimy local politicians helped to insure that the hotel was largely built before higher authorities put a stop to the work.
The Supreme Court has ruled the hotel is illegal because it is within 100 metres of the beach, and thus falls foul of the coastal law (ley de costas)

Police raids five brothels and nine homes in the province of Almeria

Authorities raided five brothels and nine homes in the province of Almeria, arresting 13 people suspected of leading the ring.
Police in southern Spain arrested 60 people Thursday in a crackdown on a human trafficking ring that forced an estimated 2,000 Russian women into prostitution, an official said.
Authorities raided five brothels and nine homes in the province of Almeria, arresting 13 people suspected of leading the ring, said Juan Jose Lopez Garzon, the head of the Spanish Interior Ministry office in the Andalusia region, which includes Almeria.
All 13 have been charged with illegal trafficking of people for sexual exploitation, prostitution and offenses against the rights of foreign citizens and workers. Police found 34 Russian women in four of the brothels and arrested them for being in Spain without residency papers.
Investigators believe the women were brought to Spain with fake documentation and kept under strict lockdown in the nightclubs where they were forced to work.
During the raids, police found €21,000 (US$28,350) in cash, nine cars, five computers, gold, passports and plane tickets.
Investigations into the ring began in November 2006, when government authorities were alerted to large transactions with Russian money taking place in foreign currency exchange outlets.
Police estimate the total amount of money sent by the traffickers to Russia to be more than €55,000 (US$74,250). Police continue to search for more Russian victims of the ring in Spain.

Thousands expatriates living on the Costas could see their homes demolished

Thousands expatriates living on the Costas could see their homes demolished after it emerged the properties had been built illegally.Administrators sent in to run the town hall at Marbella recently announced that bulldozers would almost certainly be brought in to knock down illegal buildings there. Local corruption and the flaunting of planning laws have allowed swathes of the Spanish coastline to be developed during the last decade.illegal developments being demolished years after construction. Very public trials of local officials in Spain are bringing into doubt the legality of building permits which appeared to have been properly granted. ‘Land grab’ laws have seen illegal building stopped and buyers left holding worthless paper and their deposits lost. Around 100,000 illegal homes, including one owned by a former prime minister, face demolition in Spain, according to a new prosecutor appointed to tackle building fraud and corruption.Andalucía also has the greatest number of cases of urban corruption (26), which has seen 180 people implicated and accused of various offences such as bribery, money laundering and changing the status of land illegally to permit construction in places such as Marbella.
Following Andalucía are the Canary Islands and Valencia.

Helen and Leonard Prior sold their home in Berkshire and spent £570,000 turning an area of barren scrubland into a villa with heated swimming pool and landscaped gardens.
The £570,000 villa in Vera, Almeria, complete with heated swimming pool and landscaped gardens, is reduced to rubble
They named it "Tranquilidad" in expectation of how they would spend their retirement. But yesterday, a demolition ball turned their home of the past four years to rubble.
''We were utterly powerless to stop them," said Mrs Prior, who is 64 today. "We had hoped to spend the rest of our days here but within hours everything we worked for was destroyed."
Countless Britons have been duped by unscrupulous estate agents, lawyers or property developers into purchasing homes that have been built on green belt land or without proper permission.
Last November Spain's socialist government vowed to pull down all illegally built property on 480 miles of Mediterranean coastline. The Priors, who are believed to be the first British couple to have had their villa torn down, say they did everything possible to ensure they had approval to build their home on the outskirts of Vera in the Andalusian province of Almeria.
"We used a local builder and lawyer and have documentation from the town hall giving us planning permission," said Mrs Prior.
She added: "About 18 months ago we were informed that although the local council had approved the building the regional government of Andalusia had not." After seeking legal advice they were told that although their home had been built on designated "rustic land" it would probably be allowed to remain. But on Dec 16 a policeman came to the door with a demolition order.
"Even as late as Tuesday we were reassured by our legal team that the demolition would not go ahead as it was against the Spanish constitution," Mrs Prior said. It was not until Wednesday morning when the water was disconnected followed by the electricity that the couple realised what was going to happen.
"We looked outside and saw a team of policemen - about 20 of them all armed - approaching our house alongside a team of lorries and diggers and we knew we had lost our home. We are in shock."
The couple were given two hours to remove their belongings from the house before the bulldozers moved in.Francisco Paco of Irwin Mitchell, a law firm specialising in Spanish property law, said: "Local authorities have given licences to individuals for land that should be protected.
"The buyer therefore believes that what they are doing is legal, but they later discover that the land should never have been built on."